Laying the foundation for Practice Management SuccessOften, partners at CPA firms find themselves providing great business advice to their clients that they know they should be incorporating into
their own firms. You know what’s best for your business but it’s a constant struggle to meet all of the demands on your time.
That’s where Firm Foundation can help. We can assist you in managing your firm — and your time — to achieve your vision of success, one building block at a time.
While we can’t build more hours into the day, we can provide a broad range of time-saving practice management resources targeted to your needs including:
- Assessment tools — designed to easily identify strengths, weaknesses and gaps
- Orientation process — assistance in prioritizing your goals and determining where to start
- Streamlined implementation — tools, methods and guidance to help you initiate services and apply best practices in the most efficient manner possible
Practice management tools include:
Financial benchmarking
When most of your time is spent with your nose to the grindstone, it’s hard to tell exactly how competitive you are as a firm. Firm Foundation members who participate in our annual Financial Statistics Survey have an opportunity to compare their firm to other firms similar in size, scope and practice focus. This is a valuable resource designed to gain insight on best practices and areas of improvement — or to simply reaffirm that you’re already doing the best job possible in key areas of practice management.
The survey focuses on key measurements including margin, leverage, utilization, average collected rate, cash flow and more. Once a baseline is established, we use that information to make direct comparisons with your firm’s data, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and potential problem areas, and we work with our members to tackle their most important challenges.
Monthly performance snapshot
Firm Foundation also provides you with a monthly snapshot of your firm’s performance by tracking key financial metrics. This is a useful tool for facilitating communication and discussion among your firm’s leaders to determine key priorities or seek affirmation to remain on track to achieving stated goals.
Practice management consulting
Our team of experienced accounting industry professionals will provide training, recommendations and best practices on key issues facing firms in your market segment, including:
| Partner compensation models |
Client mix/realization |
| Partner evaluations |
Profitability enhancement |
| Partner succession planning |
Strategic planning |
| Partnership agreements |
Retreat facilitation |
| Partner accountability |
Implementation assistance |
Policies and procedures
Firm Foundation can provide a recommended framework for standard policies and procedures that every CPA needs to have documented within their practice, focusing on infrastructure, HR, functional areas, technology and more.
Peer-to-peer networking and best practices
Some of the best advice comes from people just like you — successful business leaders, owners and partners who share your concerns, challenges and achievements. Firm Foundation facilitates the sharing of best practices among members through a number of venues:
| Monthly Web seminars |
Discussion boards |
| Annual conference |
Topical discussions |
| Managing partner meetings |
Member profiles and specialties |
| Monthly newsletter |
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